Chairman of Samsung is probably dead but we are all pretending he is alive because if he dies, the country will probably go into an economic death-spiral.

A thread.

Samsung usually accounts for 20% of the exports of the entire country of South Korea. As a single group, it's a conglomerate with either large or controlling market share in tech, construction, finance & insurance, hospitality, security, travel, food, retail producing 12% of GDP.

That's just the business interests that we publicly know about.

Yes, almost $1 in every $5 in the country brought in from abroad is by Samsung. If you live in Korea, you will know that smaller companies are set up specifically by entrepreneurs to supply Samsung. Those are the

"independent" business owners that have risks/costs so high or margins so thin that a conglomerate like Samsung can't be assed to do themselves.

Consumers might find alternative products quick but those small businesses will collapse within months.

Samsung is too big to fail.

Enter Korean tax code. Korea has 50% inheritance tax on assets above $2.5m. When Lee Gunhee dies, his family will owe the government $7b. The family will have to sell personal stakes of Samsung-controlled assets, weakening the strong, complex investment structure they built.

It is a fact that Chairman Lee Gunhee suffered a heart attack in 2014 and was hospitalized. Nobody with an identity but close family members have reported seeing him.

People who claimed he was dead have either disappeated or been arrested. When his death was reported in 2014,

the entire country flipped and the story was deleted because the news site said that the whistleblower disappeared.

It's been five years and nobody can tell us his condition with certainty. Nobody has seem him. He is practically dead to the public - whether he is legally... idk

If I stop tweeting at some point before his death is revealed, especially if someone has suicided me, know that it was the long arm of the Lees that came around to silence me.

Anyway, here's how much of market capitalisation Samsung has in Korea.

41% of it

a single entity

More than all the other chaebol conglomerates combined.

Ok, so you guys are missing the most important connection in this family because you recognise CJ and SSG.

SAMSUNG and the Lees explicitly have mainstream news media outlets. It's one of the reasons why LGH married Hong Rahee. For chaebols, marriage is a strategic alliance.

So there's a true story about one celebrity, an actress, who married into the Samsung dynasty without offering any of the huge strategic benefits - basically joining the ruling class after being a court jester.

A thread?